United States presidential election, 1860
2.3 pp | image1 = | nominee1 = Abraham Lincoln | party1 = Republican Party (United States) | home_state1 = Illinois | running_mate1 = Hannibal Hamlin | electoral_vote1 = 180 | states_carried1 = 18 | popular_vote1 = 1,865,908 | percentage1 = 39.8% | map_size = 350px | map = | map_caption = Presidential Election 1860. Red shows states won by Lincoln/Hamlin, green by Breckinridge/Lane, orange by Bell/Everett, and blue by Douglas/Johnson Numbers are Electoral College votes in each state by the 1850 Census. | title = President | before_election = James Buchanan | before_party = Democratic Party (United States) | after_election = Abraham Lincoln | after_party = Republican Party (United States) | image2 = | nominee2 = John C. Breckinridge | party2 = Southern Democratic (United States) | home_state2 = Kentucky | running_mate2 = Joseph Lane | states_carried2 = 11 | electoral_vote2 = 72 | popular_vote2 = 848,019 | percentage2 = 18.1% | image4 = | nominee4 = John Bell | party4 = Constitutional Union Party (United States) | home_state4 = Tennessee | running_mate4 = Edward Everett | states_carried4 = 3 | electoral_vote4 = 39 | popular_vote4 = 590,901 | percentage4 = 12.6% | image5 = | nominee5 = Stephen A. Douglas | party5 = Northern Democratic | color5 = 3333FF | home_state5 = Illinois | running_mate5 = Herschel V. Johnson | electoral_vote5 = 12 | states_carried5 = 1 | popular_vote5 = 1,380,202 | percentage5 = 29.5% }} The United States presidential election of 1860 was the nineteenth quadrennial presidential election to select the President and Vice President of the United States. The election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860, and served as the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the American Civil War. The United States had been divided during the 1850s on questions surrounding the expansion of slavery and the rights of slave owners. Incumbent President James Buchanan, like his predecessor Franklin Pierce, was a northerner with sympathies for the South. He recommended that Supreme Court Justice Robert Grier vote proslavery in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857. This was so unpopular it backfired on Buchanan's presidency, allowing the Republican Party to win a majority in the House in 1858 and full control of Congress in 1860. Buchanan declined to seek re-election. In 1860, these issues broke the Democratic Party into Northern and Southern factions, and a new Constitutional Union Party appeared. In the face of a divided opposition, the newly created Republican Party (founded in 1854) secured a majority of the electoral votes, putting Abraham Lincoln in the White House with almost no support from the South. The election of 1860 positioned the nation on the brink of fundamental change. The Republican win marked the end of the Southern United States's political dominance of the Union. Southerners had served as Presidents for two-thirds of the time since 1789, and none of the northerners elected had ever won reelection. Up to that point in American history, southerners had also controlled the speakership of the House, the position of President pro tempore of the United States Senate, and the majority of Supreme Court justices for most of the time. Between Election Day and Lincoln’s inauguration, seven Southern slave-holding states declared their secession from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, with the new polity’s capital being placed in Montgomery, Alabama. Military maneuvering between the new Confederacy and the United States, and disputes over U.S. forts in Confederate territory led to the firing on Fort Sumter, which precipitated the civil war that lasted from 1861 to 1865. Nominations The 1860 presidential election conventions were unusually tumultuous, due in particular to a split in the Democratic Party that led to rival conventions. Democratic (Northern Democratic) Party nomination . The Institute hosted the Democratic National Convention and December Secession Convention in 1860.Lossing, Benson John. Pictorial history of the civil war in the United States of America, Volume 1 (1866) Poughkeepsie, NY. Free ebook. viewed January 26, 2012. Bolters met at St. Andrew's Hall.]] Northern Democratic candidates: * Stephen Douglas, Senator from Illinois * James Guthrie, former Secretary Treasury * Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, Senator from Virginia * Joseph Lane, Senator from Oregon * Daniel S. Dickinson, former Senator from New York * Andrew Johnson, Senator from Tennessee Democratic Party candidates gallery File:StephenADouglas.png|Senator Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois File:JamesGuthrie.png|Former Treasury Secretary James Guthrie File:RobertMercerTaliaferroHunter.png|Senator Robert M. T. Hunter from Virginia File:JosephLane.png|Senator Joseph Lane from Oregon File:DanielSDickinson.png|Former Senator Daniel S. Dickinson from New York File:AndrewJohnson1860.png|Senator Andrew Johnson from Tennessee At the Democratic National Convention held in Institute Hall in Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1860, 51 Southern Democrats walked out over a platform dispute. The extreme pro-slavery “Fire-Eater” William Lowndes Yancey and the Alabama delegation first left the hall, followed by the delegates of Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, three of the four delegates from Arkansas, and one of the three delegates from Delaware. Six candidates were nominated: Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois, James Guthrie from Kentucky, Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter from Virginia, Joseph Lane from Oregon, Daniel S. Dickinson from New York, and Andrew Johnson from Tennessee. Three other candidates, Isaac Toucey from Connecticut, James Pearce from Maryland, and Jefferson Davis from Mississippi (the future president of the Confederate States) also received votes. Douglas, a moderate on the slavery issue who favored “popular sovereignty”, was ahead on the first ballot, but needed 56.5 more votes to secure the nomination. On the 57th ballot, Douglas was still ahead, but 51.5 votes short of nomination. In desperation, the delegates agreed on May 3 to stop voting and adjourn the convention. The Democrats convened again at the Front Street Theater in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 18. This time, 110 Southern delegates (led by “Fire-Eaters”) walked out when the convention would not adopt a resolution supporting extending slavery into territories whose voters did not want it. Some considered Horatio Seymour a compromise candidate for the National Democratic nomination at the reconvening convention in Baltimore. Seymour wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper declaring unreservedly that he was not a candidate for either spot on the ticket. After two ballots, the remaining Democrats nominated the ticket of Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois for president. Benjamin Fitzpatrick from Alabama was nominated for vice president, but he refused the nomination. That nomination ultimately went instead to Herschel Vespasian Johnson from Georgia. Southern Democratic Party nomination , The Road to Disunion: Secessionists Triumphant, Vol.2. Oxford University, 2007, p. 321]] Southern Democratic candidates: * John C. Breckinridge, Vice President of the United States * Daniel S. Dickinson, former Senator from New York * Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, Senator from Virginia * Joseph Lane, Senator from Oregon * Jefferson Davis, Senator from Mississippi Southern Democratic Party candidates gallery File:John C Breckinridge-04775-restored.jpg|Vice President John C. Breckinridge File:DanielSDickinson.png|Former Senator Daniel S. Dickinson from New York File:RobertMercerTaliaferroHunter.png|Senator Robert M. T. Hunter from Virginia (declined to be nominated) File:JosephLane.png|Senator Joseph Lane from Oregon (declined to be nominated) File:Davis4-2.JPG|Senator Jefferson Davis from Mississippi (declined to be nominated) The Charleston bolters reconvened in Richmond, Virginia on June 11. When the Democrats reconvened in Baltimore, they rejoined (except South Carolina and Florida, who stayed in Richmond). When the convention seated two replacement delegations on June 18, they bolted again, now accompanied by nearly all other Southern delegates, as well as erstwhile Convention chair Caleb Cushing, a New Englander and former member of Franklin Pierce’s cabinet. This larger group met immediately in Baltimore’s Institute Hall, with Cushing again presiding. They adopted the pro-slavery platform rejected at Charleston, and nominated Vice President John C. Breckinridge for President, and Senator Joseph Lane from Oregon for Vice President.Heidler, p. 157. Baltimore's Institute Hall, not be confused with Charleston's Institute Hall also used by the walk-out delegations. Yancey and some (less than half) of the bolters, almost entirely from the Lower South, met on June 28 in Richmond, along with the South Carolina and Florida delegations. This convention affirmed the nominations of Breckinridge and Lane. Besides the Democratic Parties in the southern states, the Breckinridge/Lane ticket was also supported by the Buchanan administration. Buchanan's own continued prestige in his home state of Pennsylvania ensured that Breckinridge would be the principal Democratic candidate in that populous state. Breckinridge was the last sitting Vice President nominated for President until Richard Nixon in 1960. Republican Party nomination , Republican Convention]] Republican candidates: * Abraham Lincoln, former representative from Illinois * William Seward, Senator from New York * Simon Cameron, Senator from Pennsylvania * Salmon P. Chase, Governor of Ohio * Edward Bates, former representative from Missouri * John McLean, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court * Benjamin Wade, Senator from Ohio * William L. Dayton, former Senator from New Jersey Republican Party candidates gallery File:Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Hesler.png|Former Representative Abraham Lincoln from Illinois File:William Henry Seward - edited.jpg|Senator William H. Seward from New York File:Smn Cameron-SecofWar.jpg|Senator Simon Cameron from Pennsylvania File:Samuel Portland Chase.jpg|Governor Salmon P. Chase of Ohio File:Edward Bates - Brady-Handy.jpg|Former Representative Edward Bates from Missouri File:John McLean - History of Ohio.jpg|Associate Justice John McLean File:Benjamin F Wade - Brady-Handy.jpg|Senator Benjamin Wade from Ohio File:William L. Dayton.jpg|Former Senator William L. Dayton from New Jersey The Republican National Convention met in mid-May 1860, after the Democrats had been forced to adjourn their convention in Charleston. With the Democrats in disarray and a sweep of the Northern states possible, the Republicans felt confident going into their convention in Chicago. William H. Seward from New York was considered the front runner, followed by Abraham Lincoln from Illinois, Salmon P. Chase from Ohio, and Missouri’s Edward Bates. As the convention developed, however, it was revealed that Seward, Chase, and Bates had each alienated factions of the Republican Party. Delegates were concerned that Seward was too closely identified with the radical wing of the party, and his moves toward the center had alienated the radicals. Chase, a former Democrat, had alienated many of the former Whigs by his coalition with the Democrats in the late 1840s. He had also opposed tariffs demanded by Pennsylvania, and critically, had opposition from his own delegation from Ohio. Bates outlined his positions on the extension of slavery into the territories and equal constitutional rights for all citizens, positions that alienated his supporters in the border states and Southern conservatives. German Americans in the party opposed Bates because of his past association with the Know Nothings. Since it was essential to carry the West, and because Lincoln had a national reputation from his debates and speeches as the most articulate moderate, he won the party's nomination for president on the third ballot on May 18, 1860. Senator Hannibal Hamlin from Maine was nominated for vice-president, defeating Cassius Clay from Kentucky. The party platform promised not to interfere with slavery in the states, but suggested an opposition to slavery in the territories. The platform promised tariffs protecting industry and workers, a Homestead Act granting free farmland in the West to settlers, and the funding of a transcontinental railroad. There was no mention of Mormonism (which had been condemned in the Party's 1856 platform), the Fugitive Slave Act, personal liberty laws, or the Dred Scott decision.Rhodes (1920) 2:420 While the Seward forces were disappointed at the nomination of a little-known western upstart, they rallied behind Lincoln. Abolitionists, however, were angry at the selection of a moderate and had little faith in Lincoln.Rhodes (1920) 2:429 Constitutional Union Party nomination Constitutional Union candidates: * John Bell, former Senator from Tennessee * Sam Houston, Governor of Texas * John J. Crittenden, Senator from Kentucky * Edward Everett, former Senator from Massachusetts * William A. Graham, former Senator from North Carolina * William C. Rives, former Senator from Virginia File:JohnBell.png|Former Senator John Bell of Tennessee File:SHouston 2.jpg|Governor Sam Houston of Texas File:John Jordan Crittenden - Brady 1855.jpg|Senator John J. Crittenden from Kentucky File:Edward Everett.jpg|Former Senator Edward Everett from Massachusetts File:William Alexander Graham - Brady-Handy.jpg|Former Senator William A. Graham from North Carolina File:WilliamCRives.png|Former Senator William C. Rives from Virginia The Constitutional Union Party was formed by remnants of both the defunct Know Nothing and Whig Parties who were unwilling to join either the Republicans or the Democrats. The parties members hoped to stave off Southern secession by avoiding the slavery issue.Schulten, Susan (2010-11-10). "How (And Where) Lincoln Won". New York Times, November 10, 2010. Retrieved from http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/how-and-where-lincoln-won/. They met in the Eastside District Courthouse of Baltimore and nominated John Bell from Tennessee for president over Governor Sam Houston of Texas on the second ballot. Edward Everett was nominated for vice-president at the convention on May 9, 1860, one week before Lincoln.Lossing, Benson John, Pictorial History of the Civil War in the United States of America, Volume 1 (1866) Poughkeepsie, NY. Free ebook. viewed January 26, 2012. p. 29 Bolters met at St. Andrew's Hall.The building had been the First Presbyterian Meeting House (Two Towers Church) on Fayette Street, between Calvert and North Street, demolished before 1866 and occupied by the United States Courthouse. John Bell was a former Whig who had opposed the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the Lecompton Constitution. Edward Everett had been president of Harvard University and Secretary of State in the Fillmore administration. The party platform advocated compromise to save the Union with the slogan “The Union as it is, and the Constitution as it is.”Getting the Message Out! Stephen A. Douglas Liberty (Union) Party nomination Liberty (Union) candidates: * Gerrit Smith, former representative from New York Liberty (Union) candidates gallery File:GerritSmith-1840s.jpg|Former Representative Gerrit Smith from New York The Liberty Party as formed in 1860 was a splinter (or remnant) of the former Liberty Party of the 1840s, after most of its membership left to join the Free Soil Party in 1848 and nearly all of what remained of it joined the Republicans in 1854. A convention of one hundred delegates was held in Convention Hall, Syracuse, New York, on August 29, 1860. Delegates were in attendance from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, and Massachusetts. Several of the delegates were women. Gerrit Smith, a prominent abolitionist and the 1848 presidential nominee of the original Liberty Party, had sent a letter in which he stated that his health had been so poor that he had not been able to be away from home since 1858. Nonetheless, he remained popular in the party because he had helped inspire some of John Brown's supporters at the Raid on Harpers Ferry. In his letter, Smith donated $50 to pay for the printing of ballots in the various states. There was quite a spirited contest between the friends of Gerrit Smith and William Goodell in regard to the nomination for the presidency. In spite of his professed ill health, Gerrit Smith was nominated for president and Samuel McFarland from Pennsylvania was nominated for vice president. In Ohio, a slate of presidential electors pledged to Smith ran with the name of the Union Party. People's Party nomination File:SHouston 2.jpg|Governor Sam Houston of Texas The People's Party was a loose association of the supporters of Governor Samuel Houston. On April 20, 1860, the party held what it termed a national convention to nominate Houston for president on the San Jacinto Battlefield in Texas. Houston’s supporters at the gathering did not nominate a vice-presidential candidate, since they expected later gatherings to carry out that function. Later mass meetings were held in northern cities, such as New York City on May 30, 1860, but they too failed to nominate a vice-presidential candidate. Houston withdrew from the race on August 16, convinced that his candidacy would only make it easier for the Republican candidate to win, and urged the formation of a Unified “Union” ticket in opposition to it. An election for disunion In their campaigning, Bell and Douglas both claimed that disunion would not necessarily follow a Lincoln election. Nonetheless, loyal army officers in Virginia, Kansas and South Carolina warned Lincoln of military preparations to the contrary. Secessionists threw their support behind Breckinridge in an attempt either to force the anti-Republican candidates to coordinate their electoral votes or throw the election into the House of Representatives, where the selection of the president would be made by the representatives elected in 1858, before the Republican majorities in both House and Senate achieved in 1860 were seated in the new 37th Congress. Mexican War hero Winfield Scott suggested to Lincoln that he assume the powers of a commander-in-chief before inauguration. But historian Bruce Chadwick observes that Lincoln and his advisors ignored the widespread alarms and threats of secession as mere election trickery. Indeed, voting in the South was not as monolithic as the Electoral College map would make it seem. Economically, culturally, and politically, the South was made up of three regions. In the states of the “Upper” South, later known as the “Border States” (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri along with the Kansas territories), unionist popular votes were scattered among Lincoln, Douglas, and Bell, to form a majority in all four. In four of the five “Middle” South states, there was a unionist majority divided between Douglas and Bell in Virginia and Tennessee; in North Carolina and Arkansas, the unionist (Bell and Douglas) vote approached a majority. Texas was the only Middle South state that Breckinridge carried convincingly. In three of the six “Deep” South, unionists (Bell and Douglas) won divided majorities in Georgia and Louisiana or neared it in Alabama. Breckinridge convincingly carried only three of the six states of the Deep South (South Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi). These three Deep South states were all among the four Southern states with the lowest white populations; together, they held only nine-percent of Southern whites.Freehling, William W., The Road to Disunion: Volume II. Secessionists Triumphant, 1854–1861, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 447. In the states that would become the Confederacy, the three states with the highest voter turnouts voted the most one-sided. Texas, with five percent of the total wartime South’s population, voted 80 percent Breckinridge. Kentucky and Missouri, with one-fourth the total population, voted 68 percent pro-union Bell, Douglas and Lincoln. In comparison, the six states of the Deep South making up one-fourth the Confederate voting population, split 57 percent Breckinridge versus 43 percent for the two pro-union candidates. The four states that were admitted to the Confederacy after Fort Sumter held almost half its population, and voted a narrow combined majority of 53 percent for the pro-union candidates. In the eleven states that would later declare their secession from the Union and be controlled by Confederate armies, ballots for Lincoln were cast only in Virginia, |group="nb"}} where he received only 1.1 percent of the popular vote. In order to distribute ballots in a state, candidates needed citizens in that state who would pledge to vote for the candidate in the Electoral College. In ten southern slave states, no citizens would publicly pledge such support for Lincoln. In the four slave states that did not secede (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware), Lincoln came in fourth in every state except Delaware (where he finished third). Within the fifteen slave states, Lincoln won only two counties out of 996, Missouri’s St. Louis and Gasconade Counties. In the 1856 election, the Republican candidate for president had received no votes at all in ten of the fourteen slave states with a popular vote. Results The election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860, and was noteworthy for exaggerated sectionalism in a country that was soon to dissolve into civil war. Voter turnout was 81.2%, the highest in American history up to that time, and the second-highest overall (exceeded only in the election of 1876).The 1876 election had a turnout of 81.8%, slightly higher than 1860. Between 1828 and 1928: Data between 1932 and 2008: All six Presidents elected since Andrew Jackson won re-election in 1832 had been one-term presidents, the last four with a popular vote under 51 percent.http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/ Only Franklin Pierce had achieved a statistical majority in the popular vote (50.83 percent). Lincoln won the Electoral College with less than 40 percent of the popular vote nationwide by carrying states above the Mason–Dixon line and north of the Ohio River, plus the states of California and Oregon in the Far West. Unlike every preceding president-elect, Lincoln did not carry even one slave state, and indeed he was not on the ballot in the southern states of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. He was the first President-elect to not be on the ballot in all states, a feat which has since been equalled thrice but never to the same extent. The Republican victory resulted from the concentration of votes in the free states, which together controlled a majority of the presidential electors.Chadwick, Bruce. “Lincoln for President: an unlikely candidate, an audacious strategy, and the victory no one saw coming” (2009) Ch. 10 The Eleventh Hour. p. 289 ISBN 978-1-4022-2504-8 Lincoln’s strategy was deliberately focused, in collaboration with Republican Party Chairman Thurlow Weed, “Find 'em and vote 'em.” and based on expanding on the states Frémont won four years earlier. New York was critical with 35 Electoral College votes, 11.5 percent of the total; with Pennsylvania (27) and Ohio (23), a candidate could collect more than half (85) of the votes needed. The Wide Awakes young Republican men’s organization massively expanded registered voter lists, and although Lincoln was not even on the ballot in most southern states, population increases in the free states had far exceeded those seen in the slave states for many years before the election of 1860, hence free states dominated in the Electoral College.Ziegler-McPherson, Christina A.; Selling America : Immigration Promotion and the Settlement of the American Continent, 1607-1914, pp. 34-36 ISBN 1440842094 The split in the Democratic party is sometimes held responsible for Lincoln’s victory,e.g., the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia, vol, 15, p. 171 but he would still have won in the Electoral College, 169 to 134, if all of the anti-Lincoln voters had united behind a single candidate. Only in California, Oregon, and Illinois was Lincoln’s victory margin less than seven percent. In New England, he won every county.Mansch, Larry D.; Abraham Lincoln, President-Elect: The Four Critical Months from Election to Inauguration, p. 61 ISBN 0-7864-2026-X At most, a single opponent nationwide would only have deprived Lincoln of California and Oregon (both of which he only won via a plurality of the statewide vote), whose combined total of seven electoral votes would have made no difference to the result; every other state won by the Republicans was won by a clear majority of the vote. In the three states of New York, Rhode Island, and New Jersey where anti-Lincoln votes did combine into fusion tickets, Lincoln still won two and split the electoral vote of New Jersey.Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln: Prologue to Civil War (1950), p. 312 If the opposition had formed fusion tickets in every state, Lincoln still would have received 169 electoral votes via-à-vis the 152 he required to win the Electoral College. Moreover, it is widely acknowledged that it was impossible for Lincoln's opponents to combine because they hated each other.Potter, The impending crisis, 1848–1861 (1976) p. 437Luthin, The First Lincoln Campaign p. 227 The fractured Democratic vote did tip California, Oregon, and four New Jersey electoral votes to Lincoln, giving him 180 Electoral College votes.1860 election The election was the last time a Republican won a majority of New Jersey’s electoral votes until 1872. Like Lincoln, Breckinridge and Bell won no electoral votes outside of their respective sections. While Bell retired to his family business, quietly supporting his state’s secession, Breckinridge served as a Confederate general. He finished second in the Electoral College with 72 votes, carrying eleven of fifteen slave states (including South Carolina, whose electors were chosen by the state legislature, not popular vote). Breckinridge stood a distant third in national popular vote at eighteen percent, but accrued 50–75 percent in the first seven states that would become the Confederate States of America. He took nine of the eleven states that eventually joined, plus the border slave states of Delaware and Maryland, losing only Virginia and Tennessee. Breckinridge received very little support in the free states, showing some strength only in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Bell carried three slave states (Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia) and lost Maryland by only 722 votes. Nevertheless, he finished a remarkable second in all slave states won by Breckinridge and Douglas. He won 45 to 47 percent in Maryland, Tennessee and North Carolina and canvassed respectably with 36 to 40 percent in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, and Florida. It was hoped by Bell himself that he would take over the former support of the extinct Whig Party in free states, but the majority of this support went to Lincoln.Davies, Gareth and Zelizer, Julian E.; America at the Ballot Box: Elections and Political History, pp. 65-66 ISBN 0812291360 Thus, except for running mate Everett’s home state of Massachusetts, and California, Bell received even less support in the free states than did Breckinridge, and consequently came in last in the national popular vote at 12 percent. Douglas was the only candidate who won electoral votes in both slave and free states (free New Jersey and slave Missouri). His support was the most widespread geographically; he finished second behind Lincoln in the popular vote with 29.5 percent, but last in the Electoral College. Douglas attained a 28–47 percent share in the states of the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and Trans-Mississippi West, but slipped to 19–39 percent in New England. Outside his regional section, Douglas took 15–17 percent of the popular vote total in the slave states of Kentucky, Alabama and Louisiana, then 10 percent or less in the nine remaining slave states. Douglas, in his “Norfolk Doctrine”, reiterated in North Carolina, promised to keep the Union together by coercion if states proceeded to secede. The popular vote for Lincoln and Douglas combined was seventy percent of the turnout. Source (Popular Vote): Source (Electoral Vote): (a) The popular vote figures exclude South Carolina where the Electors were chosen by the state legislature rather than by popular vote. |39.82}} |29.46}} |18.10}} |12.61}} }} |59.41}} |23.76}} |12.87}} |3.96}} }} Geography of results Cartographic gallery File:PresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif|Map of presidential election results by county File:RepublicanPresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif|Map of Republican presidential election results by county File:NorthernDemocraticPresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif|Map of Northern Democratic presidential election results by county File:SouthernDemocraticPresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif|Map of Southern Democratic presidential election results by county File:ConstitutionalUnionPresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif|Map of Constitutional Union presidential election results by county File:FusionPresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif|Map of "Fusion" slate presidential election results by county File:CartogramPresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif|Cartogram of presidential election results by county File:CartogramRepublicanPresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif|Cartogram of Republican presidential election results by county File:CartogramNorthernDemocraticPresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif|Cartogram of Northern Democratic presidential election results by county File:CartogramSouthernDemocraticPresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif|Cartogram of Southern Democratic presidential election results by county File:CartogramConstitutionalUnionPresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif|Cartogram of Constitutional Union presidential election results by county File:CartogramFusionPresidentialCounty1860Colorbrewer.gif|Cartogram of "Fusion" slate presidential election results by county Results by state Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836–1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–57. Trigger for the Civil War The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 was the immediate cause of southern resolutions of secession. He was the nominee of the Republican party with an anti-slavery expansion platform, he refused to acknowledge the right to secession, and he would not yield federal property within Southern states. Numerous historians have explored the reasons so many white Southerners adopted secessionism in 1860.Mary A. Decredico, "Sectionalism and the Secession Crisis," in John b. Boles, ed., A Companion to the American South (2004) pp. 240 Bertram Wyatt-Brown argues that secessionists desired independence as necessary for their honor. They could no longer tolerate northern attitudes that regarded slave ownership as a great sin and Northern politicians who insisted on stopping the spread of slavery.Decredico, p. 243Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. Yankee Saints and Southern Sinners (1990) Avery Craven argues that secessionists believed Lincoln's election meant long-term doom for their peculiar social system. These terms placed issues beyond the democratic process, and they placed "the great masses of men, North and South, helpless before the drift into war".Avery Craven, [http://lsupress.org/books/detail/the-growth-of-southern-nationalism-1848-1861/ The Growth of Southern Nationalism, 1848–1861], 1953. ISBN 978-0-8071-0006-6, p. 391, 394, 396. See also *American election campaigns in the 19th century *Electoral history of Abraham Lincoln *History of the United States (1849–1865) *History of the United States Democratic Party *History of the United States Republican Party *John Hanks *Third Party System *United States House of Representatives elections, 1860 *United States Senate elections, 1860 Notes References Bibliography * * * Decredico, Mary A. "Sectionalism and the Secession Crisis," in John b. Boles, ed., A Companion to the American South (2004) pp. 231-248, on the historiography of Southend motivations * * * * Fuller, A. James, ed. The Election of 1860 Reconsidered (Kent State Univ Press, 2013); 288pp; essays by scholars; online * * * Grinspan, Jon, "'Young Men for War': The Wide Awakes and Lincoln's 1860 Presidential Campaign," Journal of American History 96.2 (2009): online. * * * *Johannsen, Robert W. Stephen A. Douglas (1973), standard biography * * along with Nevins, the most detailed narrative of the election * Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union (8 volumes, Macmillan, 1950–71), detailed scholarly coverage of every election, 1848 to 1864. *Nichols, Roy Franklin. The Disruption of American Democracy (1948), pp. 348–506, focused on the Democratic party *Parks, Joseph Howard. John Bell of Tennessee (1950), standard biography * * vol. 2, ch. 11. highly detailed narrative covering 1856–60 External links *1860 election: State-by-state Popular vote results *1860 popular vote by counties *[http://encyclopediavirginia.org/United_States_Presidential_Election_of_1860 United States Presidential Election of 1860 in Encyclopedia Virginia] *Election of 1860 *Electoral Map from 1860 *Abraham Lincoln: Original Letters and Manuscripts, 1860 Shapell Manuscript Foundation *Lincoln's election – details *Report on 1860 Republican convention *Overview of Constitutional Union National Convention * — Michael Sheppard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology *Abraham Lincoln: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress *Presidential Election of 1860: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress * Bill Bigelow, "The Election of 1860 Role Play", 12-page lesson plan for high school students, Zinn Education Project/Rethinking Schools * Election of 1860 in Counting the Votes Category:History of the United States (1849–65) Category:Presidency of Abraham Lincoln Category:Secession crisis of 1860–61 Category:United States presidential election, 1860 Category:November 1860 events